Can't Get Much Higher (Chris Dalla Riva)

Last week, was the 65th anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death. Inspired by that sad anniversary, I want to talk a bit about the tragedy of dying young. Please note that this is the audio companion to my newsletter. For the written version of this episode, click here. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

In 2024, The Recording Academy pushed that it was the year of women at the Grammys. This week, we decide to investigate that claim, along with sharing a fascinating anecdote about Johnny Mercer and Sadie Vimmerstedt. As always, you can find the written version of this podcast here. It contains images, graphs, and charts to color this discussion. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Inspired by a fan question about tons of young artists dying in the 1960s and 1970s, I try to understand if that was when the most actually did die. As always, you can click here for the written version of this podcast. The written version contains charts, pictures, and graphs to color your understanding of the topic. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Over the last decade, many popular publications have claimed that music festivals are getting more similar. I decided to look at 12 of the biggest festivals to investigate. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple, Spotify, or Substack. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

This week’s story comes from George Ball, a recent graduate with a love for all things music and data. Ball recently came across the fact that Avril Lavigne released her hit song “Girlfriend” in multiple languages, including Mandarin, Spanish, and German, among others. He uses Lavigne’s translations as a jumping off point to dive into the past and future of artists singing in different tongues.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple, Spotify, or Substack. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Have you ever disliked an artist because you thought their music was dishonest? Maybe they were pretending to play an instrument that they couldn’t really play. Maybe they were doctoring up their vocals with pitch correction and effects. This week we dive deep into the idea of musical honesty to learn that it has no objective meaning. Whether you listen to folk or EDM or rock or anything, you’ve been fooled by recorded music.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

A few weeks ago, I met somebody who named their newborn daughter Lennon. That’s odd, I thought to myself. Given that the name Lennon is derived from the surname of John Lennon, I assumed it would generally be used for newborn boys. I decided to download some data to find out. Lennon, it seems, used to be more popular among newborn boys. Now, it’s mostly used for newborn girls. But in order to figure this out, I had to download 150 years of naming data from the Social Security Administration. I dove into that data to see what else I could learn about how pop culture influences names.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Last week, Rolling Stone magazine published an article about Suno AI, a startup that allows you to generate two-minute songs from a text prompts. I was playing around with this music-generation tool and was both blown away and scared. It made making music way too easy. It made me wonder if that ease was an issue.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

In 2023, only 36% of recorded music revenues in Japan came from streaming. 55% came from physical sales, the large majority of which was from CDs. This week we explore why CDs remain so popular in Japan.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Beyoncé announcing the lead single to her latest album Cowboy Carter in a Verizon commercial during the Super Bowl reminded me of how intertwined music and commerce have become and how selling out isn’t an idea anymore. This week we try to figure out what happened to selling out.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

One of my favorite newsletters is Dan Epstein's Jagged Time Lapse. In each edition, Epstein captures how music intersects with our lives in unexpected ways, how it can send us hurtling through space and time, how it can be both magical and mundane. This week, Epstein brings one of his stories to Can't Get Much Higher. If you enjoy it, make sure you subscribe to Jagged Time Lapse.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Over the last few weeks, there has been an explosive beef between hip-hop stalwarts Drake and Kendrick Lamar. What started out as a standard tit-for-tat has devolved into a volleying of nuclear bombs, accusations of predatory behavior, domestic violence, and absentee parenting flying with abandon. If you want a summary of a situation that is starting to require way too much time to follow, I recommend these pieces from Stereogum and Pitchfork. Nevertheless, this back-and-forth got me thinking about how hip-hop diss tracks are really part of a larger, less defamatory tradition.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here. If you want to here songs and their answer songs, check out this playlist that I made on Spotify.

I think the adage “Never meet your heroes” is generally good advice. I can’t say for sure, though. I haven’t met many of mine. Except one time. When I was in high school, I had a chance run-in with my greatest musical hero. It made me think that maybe some of our heroes are worth meeting.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here. If you want to here songs and their answer songs, check out this playlist that I made on Spotify.

I've got a new song out today. It's called "Late Nite Kicks". In today's podcast, I give you an inside scoop of how my creative process works as we walk through how the song came to be. Listen to "Late Nite Kicks" wherever you stream music.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here. If you want to here songs and their answer songs, check out this playlist that I made on Spotify.

I feel like recent music news is often bad news. And I’m a contributor to that. Just last week I wrote a long piece about problems in the music industry that don’t get enough attention. But tomorrow is my 29th birthday. In celebration, I wanted to talk about some great things that are happening.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here. If you want to here songs and their answer songs, check out this playlist that I made on Spotify.

The other day a friend of mine asked me if I liked being a music critic. “Music critic?” I asked. “I’m not a music critic.” And I really meant that. Yes, I write about music. Yes, I give you my opinion on certain things. Yes, I recommend songs that I enjoy. But I don’t think I’m a critic in the same way that or Jessica Hopper or or are critics. I don’t think I’m giving you deep insight into particular pieces of music. I mostly write about trends.

Nevertheless, I love music criticism. So, when I came across a huge database of reviews from the last two decades, I knew I had to start crunching some numbers. As always, this newsletter is also available as a podcast. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or click play at the top of this page.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here. If you want to here songs and their answer songs, check out this playlist that I made on Spotify.

Since today is Independence Day in the United States, I decided to explore why "The Star-Spangled Banner" is as American as the tomato is Italian. As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here. If you want to here songs and their answer songs, check out this playlist that I made on Spotify.

A few months ago, my sister graduated from college. She’s the youngest of our 22 first cousins and the final person to complete her higher education. Naturally, we were very proud and threw a big party to mark the occasion. As the drinks were flowing, my aunts and uncles began recounting family lore. One slice of that lore, stuck with me after the party ended. It was a story my grandmother had often told about how Frank Sinatra had performed at her high school while she was a student.

I’d heard this story many times. Since my grandmother is no longer alive, I thought it would be illuminating to try to track down more information about this alleged performance. What I didn’t realize is that this would send me on a multi-month journey digging through newspaper archives, pestering strangers on Facebook, speaking with leading Frank Sinatra experts, and questioning the honesty of my relatives. This podcast is the diary of my search.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. If you want to hear my favorite Sinatra songs, click here.

If you read this newsletter each week, you’ll know that I typically rant about some topic, usually one that brings together music and data. Then I recommend both a new song (i.e., one released in the last few weeks) and an old song (i.e., one released at least five years ago).

You’ll still get a rant from me this week. (It’s about crappy duets.) But the song recommendations will come from my friends at Songletter, a publication that delivers one to two songs to your inbox each week. Some of those recommendations will be new. Others will be old. But in either case, they will open your musical mind. Subscribe to Songletter if you’re looking for some exciting music.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

I almost got scammed a few years ago. A woman hit me up on Instagram asking if I wrote songs. “Of course,” I responded. She then sent a long message asking if I could compose a song for her son Daniel’s sixth birthday. She claimed she’d pay me $500. I agreed. I already wrote and recorded music regularly. It sounded like an easy $500. Then the scam emerged.

After I sent the song, the delighted woman told me that she had a check that she would mail me. There was an issue, though. The bank accidentally made the check out for $5,000 instead of $500. She wanted to know if she could send me the $5,000 and then have me send $4,500 back. At this point, I realized it was some sort of check scam, so I blocked her and forgot about it pretty quickly. But last week this scam came rushing back when someone tried to scam me in an even stranger way.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Not too long ago, I couldn’t get my writing published anywhere. I was pitching so many stories that it felt like publications were being created just to reject me. Then I pitched a story about the decline of key changes in popular music to Tedium, a publication run by Ernie Smith that explores “the dull side of the internet.” Much to my shock, Smith agree to publish the piece. And I’m glad he did. It went so viral that it not only ended up becoming one of Tedium’s greatest hits, but it led to me working with NPR and The Economist. Frankly, this newsletter wouldn’t exist had that piece not been published.

This week, I decided to try to return the favor to Tedium by running one of their pieces here. If you enjoy it, you should subscribe to their newsletter. It’s undoubtedly one of the best things on the internet.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

I got in an argument last week. As is typically the case for me, it was about an important topic: the best year for Album of the Year at the Grammys. Since my friend and I couldn’t come to an agreement, I figured a newsletter about music and data was the best place to resolve it. Luckily, I write one. We decided the loser owed the other a beer. Data, don’t fail me now!

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

I always admire people who write in a way that I know I can’t. Robert C. Gilbert is one of those people. Gilbert runs Listening Sessions, a weekly newsletter that dives deeper into single artists, songs, and albums than I even thought possible. I know he’s good at what he does because he can open my mind to new perspectives on music that I’ve been listening to for years.

Since I’m away at a wedding in California this week, I decided to give Mr. Gilbert the keys to Can’t Get Much Higher. He wrote about the importance of archival releases, a topic that might seem mundane but whose evolution has been fascinating. If you enjoy this piece, subscribe to his newsletter, Listening Sessions.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

A few weeks ago, an upcoming writer named Chris Gunther reached out to me with an interesting theory. He claimed that song titles were appearing later in songs. Here’s an example he gave me. The Rolling Stones’ classic “Angie”, released in 1973, starts with Mick Jagger intoning the title. Compare that to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire”, a piano ballad from 2023. It takes 132 words before Rodrigo reaches her title. Of course, those are just examples. Gunther claims that’s part of a larger trend, though. I’ll let him explain.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify.

In a 2011 piece for the AV Club, music critic Steven Hyden defined a new metric for musical greatness: the five-albums test. An artist passes this test if they release at least five consecutive masterful albums. According to Hyden, very few artists pass this test. The Beatles do. So do Queen. That said, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones come up short. Inspired by Mr. Hyden, I want to propose a test of musical greatness that is even more stringent: the 40-year test.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify.

Earlier this year, I spoke with Paula Toledo about her whirlwind 15 minutes of fame. Toledo made music in the 2000s that never got too big, and then moved on with her life. The problem? Nobody on the internet could move on. Unbeknownst to Toledo, people online had accidentally stumbled upon her songs and had spent a decade trying to find her.

Catherine Sinow, a frequent contributor to this newsletter, first told me about the Paula Toledo saga while working on a different story about how Jessica Simpson released 500 versions of her song “A Public Affair”. Toledo was just the tip of the iceberg, though. This week Sinow brings another story about how people online have been searching and finding lost songs at a quicker rate than ever before.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. Click here to listen on Apple or Spotify.

Being a songwriter is hard. And I’m not just talking about the fact that writing great songs is no easy task. I’m talking about how the economics around songwriting have made turning it into a career a near impossibility. As I mentioned a few months ago, songwriters don’t get paid upfront for their work. They only get paid via the royalties their songs generate after they come out. In other words, if your song doesn’t sell, you don’t get paid.

While this labor arrangement makes things harder for songwriters, it’s nothing new. It’s how songwriters have been paid for a long time. That said, something has died in the streaming age that has made it even harder to survive as a songwriter. That something is mechanical socialism. And I don’t think it’s being discussed enough.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Halloween or purposefully subjecting myself to ghostly fear, but today is October 31, so I thought it would only be appropriate if we spoke about what constitutes the ghoulish musical canon, why it is different than the Christmas carols that flood our airwaves at the end of each year, and how it might be growing more popular than ever before.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Every few days, I scroll through the top music apps on my iPhone. Usually, things are fairly status quo. Spotify. Shazam. YouTube Music. All the stuff you’d expect. But occasionally an app catches my eye that had previously eluded me.

That happened this week with a somewhat peculiar app reaching the upper echelons of Apple’s paid music app chart. It’s called “Amen Break Generator (Revived).” In many ways, it signifies both the past and future of music.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.

Before we talk about using data to measure the influence of rock artists, there’s some book-keeping to attend to.

* In last week’s podcast, I crunched some numbers to figure out if Thanksgiving music exists. Spoiler: It does. One of my readers was kind enough to add all of the most popular Thanksgiving songs to a playlist. You can check it out here.

* I spent the last six months researching this piece about ringtones for Sherwood News. Take a look if you get a chance. Though you might remember the ringtone as musical ephemera from the 2000s, it still lurks in odd corners of the internet.

* My friends over at The Pudding just put out fantastic piece about the evolution of the love song. You should check it out.

* Today is the last day of our 50% Black Friday discount for a yearlong premium subscription to this podcast. Premium subscribers get four additional newsletters each month, biweekly interviews, roundups of the most important stores in music, and so much more.

As a reminder, this is the podcast version of the newsletter Can’t Get Much Higher. Click here to read the newsletter. It contains charts, graphs, and pictures that will color your listening. For a playlist of every new song that I’ve recommended, click here. For a playlist of every old song that I’ve recommended, click here.